Recent reviews by Satellite

I play Bannerlord. I go 'this [feature/lack of feature] sucks. I should play [a game that isn't Bannerlord]'. I continue to play Bannerlord.

I'm probably going to do this for the rest of my natural life. Perfect example of how a 7.5/10 game can be a 10/10 at the same time. Buy it on sale, play Warband first if you haven't played a M&B game before, and don't bother with the campaign.

This game is an absolute gem if you're a particular type of person. I have only played single player so far, so this is what the review is for.

You'll probably like it if:
- You don't enjoy fast travel mechanics in RPGs
- You like crafting and hunting mechanics
- You don't enjoy save scum-ing
- You've modded open world RPGs (ex. Skyrim) to include weather effects and/or eating and sleeping needs
- You like losing in a way that continues a narrative

I got a defeat scenario because of hypothermia. If that sounds fun to you, absolutely pick this up.

Stopped playing because I was trying to force myself through it. I just wasn't having fun, which hurts to say as someone who's loved the Dragon Age games up until now. There's no solid RP options or choices, and the companions are all bland generic good guys. No one has any real issue if you're an elf, or a mage, or any other historically discriminated against group in Dragon Age. The world has been sanded down to an inoffensive theme park ride version of Thedas.

Let Rook be mean! Let companions have bad takes, or be unpleasant people, or challenge Rook in any meaningful way! I spent 76 hours waiting for an 'evil' choice or for a companion to truly flip on you- think of Leliana's scene in Origins where she literally tries to kill you if you taint the ashes of Andraste.

There's nothing close to like that in this game. I played an elf mage *hoping* for some hostility, and never got it. Even destroying a city felt bland, and the companion from the city too understanding of Rook's decision for it to have any bite. It's not a good RPG, and the combat is bland. Save your cash.

My rule of thumb for early access games is 'if this never updates or gets fully released, will I still be happy that I got it'?

Fields of Mistria passes with flying colors. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, but it's a great game as it is now.

(I'd really love it if they added an option to bulk harvest / buy seeds instead of pressing 'E' every time in a future update though. My fingers are tired)

It's fun with mods, though I don't think I'd recommend it to someone who wasn't already into the Battletech universe. It does, however, feature fun stompy 'Mech action, which is the main reason anyone is playing this game. Sometimes you just want to hop in a Flea and zoom around a battlefield, and sometimes you want to obliterate some poor bastard with a dual PPC shot right to the dome. This game will let you do both.

A bit of a nitpick for the lore nerds: a lot of the general vibes and/or DLC missions assume the player will have a positive opinion of the Federated Suns, so if you're the type who likes to roleplay and a die hard Davion hater, be aware of this. Let me fight more FedRats, you cowards, this is a Capellan-appreciating mercenary unit.

My workplace unionized, so now I can afford to buy this game for my friends. Unionize your workplace. 10/10

the only time i've bought a game at full price and didn't regret it

it's like jet set radio but it makes you sad

i actually live on a farm irl and this game is way better

Before Kingmaker, I used to scoff at negative reviews where the reviewer had over a hundred hours of playtime. The logic's pretty simple: 'Hey, you clearly got a lot of enjoyment out of this game. It can't be too bad.'

Well, here I am, 100+ hours in. And no, I can't recommend this game. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is that unique kind of painful where it *clearly* has potential- there's good stuff in this game!- but it's so heavily marred by the bad that it just feels like a waste. You know, the sort of game where it would be less bad if the game was bad all the way through.

TL;DR: 4/10, not worth the time investment. If you want more context:

THE GOOD:
- Interesting combat mechanics, at least in theory. As someone coming from 5e, I actually really like the idea of, say, point blank ranged attacks provoking attacks of opportunity instead of being rolled at disadvantage.

- Lore: Pathfinder has some neat lore! The worldbuilding is fun and easy to pick up, even if you have zero prior knowledge of the setting.

- Solid setup. The concept of founding your own barony and dealing with all the political shenanigans that come with that? Fantastic basis for a story.

- Companions: They're not the deepest ones out there, but they're enjoyable enough. Companions chatting to each other while setting up camp is a neat touch.

THE BAD:
- Poor explanations of gameplay: Look, I'm a hundred hours in on challenging, and I still don't understand the specifics on how combat maneuvers work. Kingdom management also suffers from poor explanations (which comes with the added bonus of potentially ruining your game unless you switch it to auto).

- Alignment restrictions: Normally I'd be all over this, but the way it's implemented is just annoying. Let me do an 'evil' thing as a good character- just, you know, change my alignment AFTER as a result instead of locking me out of the option entirely beforehand??

- Lag: The game will lag out on occasion, and the only real solution is to close the game and reopen it. Not experience ruining, but mildly irritating.

THE UGLY:
There's no way around this one: this game is designed as if your DM is a ♥♥♥♥. You wander around the map and find an enemy far above your level? Fantastic! Except there's no way to tell how strong enemies are until combat starts, and there's no real way to ESCAPE combat once started. Whoops.

Combat mechanics are strict? Not a problem! Well, except the fact that enemies don't play by the same rules you do. The (ranged weapon user) boss of the first act can fire as many arrows as he wants, and you can't land a single opportunity attack on him as he does so? Very fun!

Enemies with single weaknesses that CANNOT be beaten unless you've got an attack that deals a particular damage type? Neato! Hope this isn't a frequent- oh no it's everywhere now and you still can't escape combat. Hope you've got a save to reload to!

And this just gets worse as the game goes on. Combat turns into an unfun slog where the 'difficulty' comes from unfair mechanics or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemy abilities rather than any sense of real challenge. Are you playing an RPG because you like a solid balance of roleplay and combat? Well, hope you like min-maxing or dropping the difficulty down to 'story', because it's gonna be a nightmare otherwise.

Unfortunately, the story itself suffers from the same problems. You remember the complaints about alignment? Well, it's not just for sidequests anymore- hope you like being arbitrarily restricted from important story decisions as a result! In an amazing 'screw you' to the player, the combat and story ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ complaints align at the very end: wouldn't it be fun if we killed what was likely your main buffer character directly before the final dungeon? And made sure that they were the ONLY companion that couldn't be revived or saved no matter what, because we needed to give you an 'extra reason' to really hate the villain?

Honestly, if this WAS a tabletop RPG, I would have quit long ago. But it wasn't, and I spent too long with it. Kingmaker is a bloated slog with all the good stuff loaded in the front- go play Baldur's Gate instead.